ALPLA Group

ALPLA, Eco­help and UPT launch joint PET recy­cling ope­ra­tions in Romania 

PRT Targu Mures joint ven­ture pro­motes a bottle-to-bottle cycle

Hard, 16 Sep­tember 2021 – The ALPLA Group, the global pack­a­ging solu­tions and recy­cling spe­cia­list, is inves­ting in the con­s­truc­tion of a recy­cling plant in Targu Mures, Romania as part of a joint ven­ture with its part­ners. The pla­stic gra­nu­late recy­cled there in the future will come from PET bot­tles coll­ected from house­hold waste and will be used to manu­fac­ture new PET bottles.

By crea­ting the planned PET Recy­cling Team Targu Mures joint ven­ture, ALPLA and com­pa­nies Eco­help SRL (Romania) and United Polymer Tra­ding AG (Switz­er­land) are each inves­ting equally in the instal­la­tion of an extru­sion line to recycle post-consumer PET bot­tles at the Roma­nian partner’s site. They aim to pro­duce 15,000 tonnes of food-grade post-consumer recy­cled PET (rPET) each year. The rPET gra­nu­late will then be used to manu­fac­ture new pre­forms and bot­tles, with an inten­tion to streng­then the local mate­rials cycle within the Cen­tral and South-Eastern Europe region.

Three part­ners, three dif­fe­rent areas of expertise
The three part­ners con­tri­bute dif­fe­rent areas of exper­tise to the joint ven­ture. While ALPLA acts as a recy­cling spe­cia­list and a pre­form and bottle manu­fac­turer, Eco­help sup­plies base mate­rial in the form of PET flakes that will go through an extru­sion pro­cess to pro­duce high-grade rPET gra­nules. UPT in turn co-owns the rPET Upcy­cling faci­lity Cumapol Emmen in The Net­her­lands and spe­cia­lises in tra­ding pla­s­tics and recy­cled mate­rial. The entire amount being invested in the plant and the asso­ciated buil­ding and infra­struc­ture comes to roughly €7.5 mil­lion. The plant expan­sion will create 15 new jobs at the site in Targu Mures.

Sup­porting the local cir­cular economy
ALPLA Chairman Gün­ther Lehner, who is respon­sible for deve­lo­ping the company’s Sus­taina­bi­lity and Cir­cular Eco­nomy depart­ments, empha­sises the signi­fi­cance of the invest­ment: ‘Our aim at ALPLA now and in the future is to estab­lish a bottle-to-bottle cycle – inclu­ding in regions in which the coll­ec­tion and recy­cling of waste still has poten­tial for deve­lo­p­ment. By par­ti­ci­pa­ting in this joint ven­ture, we are taking a stra­te­gi­cally important and sus­tainable step in this direction.’

Georg Lässer, Head of Cor­po­rate Recy­cling at ALPLA, adds, ‘We are seeing con­sis­tent gro­wing demand from our cus­to­mers for recy­cled mate­rial, and this demand is world­wide and unbroken. It and our cus­to­mers’ need to close local mate­rial cycles give us an oppor­tu­nity to boost invest­ment pro­jects like these. With our two part­ners, we have brought tog­e­ther our dif­fe­rent areas of exper­tise and are loo­king for­ward to a new form of collaboration.’

Rainer Widmar, Regional Manager CEE at ALPLA, empha­sises the rele­vance for local cus­tomer rela­ti­onships: ‘With this invest­ment, we are brin­ging our recy­cling exper­tise to our cus­to­mers in the region, let­ting us ope­rate within the market at even closer proximity.’

The joint ven­ture is sub­ject to regu­la­tory appr­oval by com­pe­ti­tion aut­ho­ri­ties. The par­ties signed the con­tract for it on 9 Sep­tember 2021, with pro­duc­tion planned to com­mence in mid-2022. The par­ties have agreed not to dis­c­lose any fur­ther details.

Recy­cling acti­vi­ties expan­ding and beco­ming more international
In early 2021, the ALPLA Group announced that it would invest an average of €50 mil­lion each year in the ongoing expan­sion of its recy­cling acti­vi­ties until 2025. In par­ti­cular, it plans to glo­ba­lise its acti­vi­ties in the area of high-quality recy­clates in order to close the mate­rials cycle in as many regions as pos­sible. In all, the annual capa­city of the ALPLA recy­cling com­pa­nies, joint ven­tures and part­ner­ships amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 130,000 tonnes of PET and 60,000 tonnes of PE.

 

About the ALPLA Group
ALPLA is one of the leading companies involved in plastic packaging. Around 21,600 employees worldwide produce custom-made packaging systems, bottles, caps and moulded parts at its 178 sites across 45 countries. The high-quality packaging is used in a wide range of areas, including for food and drinks, cosmetics and care products, household detergents, washing and cleaning agents, pharmaceutical products, engine oils and lubricants.

ALPLA operates its own recycling plants for PET and HDPE in Austria, Poland, Mexico, Italy and Spain, and in the form of joint ventures in Mexico and Germany. Other projects are being realised elsewhere around the world.

www.alpla.com

 

Enquiry infor­ma­tion for editorial
ALPLA, Erik Nielsen (Senior Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Manager), tel.: +43 (0)5574 6021 701, email: erik.nielsen@alpla.com
Pzwei. Pres­se­ar­beit, Joshua Köb, tel.: +43 (0)5574 4471 522, email: joshua.koeb@pzwei.at